


Tulips

by peanutbitter



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Angst, M/M, Sort Of, but then romance, hanahaki byou, maybe not, pining got too real
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-26
Updated: 2018-01-26
Packaged: 2019-03-09 20:13:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,227
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13488915
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peanutbitter/pseuds/peanutbitter
Summary: Hanahaki Disease - an illness born from one-sided love where one coughs up flower petals.Baekhyun works in a flower shop, Chanyeol is a regular customer.





	Tulips

**Author's Note:**

> So this is one of my oldest works, originally published in Portuguese. Thought "why not?" and here it is in English. :)  
> Also, i had to do a fic with this trope, cause it hits me right in them feels.

It was autumn when the first petal came out of his mouth.

Across the street, Park Chanyeol was perched on a wooden bench.

Baekhyun coughed and coughed and more petals flew from his mouth, hovering in front of his face, tulip petals as yellow as the sun in children's drawings. Besides him, an old lady had stared in amazement, her eyes, focused on Baekhyun, expressing immensurable sadness. Baekhyun had been coughing all the way to his apartment, spreading petals along the way.

Baekhyun lived in 4B, Park Chanyeol lived in 5B.

They saw little of each other. Shared greetings like good morning at the stairs in a rainy day.  Not much was said, but for Baekhyun, every word meant a world. A hope deep down in his chest that maybe, someday, who knows.

“Hi, Baekhyun” The thunderous voice had sounded behind him, nice as ever.

“Hi Baekhyun!”  and here was the energetic voice, hard not to smile at the sound.

He turned slowly. Park Chanyeol, Lee Kyungri. Holding hands, exuberant smiles and faces flushed as the picture perfect couple.

And Baekhyun smiled.

“Hi Kyungri, Chanyeol, how are you?” His lively voice was as fake as his smile, but the couple wouldn’t notice. Over time, Baekhyun had learned to please others.

.

The petals did not stop.

Baekhyun could feel the flowers growing inside him, without a break. It wouldn’t be long until they filled his chest completely and stole away his breath.

He was no strange to what was happening. Hanahaki. Mrs. Kim, who owned the flower shop where he worked, had always told him how some people who suffered from strong unilateral love ended up contracting the disease. Baekhyun never expected to be one of these people.

For the disease, there were only two paths: to be reciprocated or to remove the flowers and, consequently, the ability to love. Baekhyun had chosen the third path, which no one talked about: to die of love.

.

It was the third time Park Chanyeol had appeared at the flower shop that week. He had bought bouquets for Kyungri. Yellow tulips were her favorites, she said. Baekhyun found it ironic and of extreme bad taste. Life had a penchant for playing with him, he was not surprised this time.

The petals came out constantly now and in greater quantity. He thought that he could make a bouquet for Park Chanyeol if he wanted to by now.  


Stupid.

.

Park Chanyeol had glass eyes, bright and dark. Pretty, Baekhyun would say. They were so intense, so different.

Park Chanyeol had a cat that ate the canary smile, teeth white and lined up. He smiled dangerously, but never noticed. Park Chanyeol was, after all, a lively and happy person. No one would associate danger with the tall boy who greeted everyone on the street in the morning. Baekhyun saw danger in Park Chanyeol. Ah, the way he walked, the way he talked. The way he looked at Baekhyun with those dog eyes, asking Baekhyun to tie the bouquet with a blue ribbon.

How could Baekhyun avoid falling in love? Every moment, every minute, everything in his mind shouted out Park Chanyeol.

When he woke up and went to the bathroom, crying a little under the shower. When he laid his head on the pillow at night and contented himself with imagining what it might be, what it would never be.

It was difficult, so difficult, to love without meaning to.

Ah, because Baekhyun had never wanted to love. He ran from love as the devil flees from the cross.

He still remembered the time Kim Jongdae had invited him to a coffee after school . The boy was too good, so handsome, so nice, and it would not be long before Baekhyun found himself sighing in the songs for Kim Jongdae. Baekhyun had never accepted the coffee.

Oh, but how he wanted to. Better Kim Jongdae than Park Chanyeol. Park Chanyeol, so happy with his little bride hanging on his arm.

Baekhyun could already see the two living in a two-story cottage with a porch and white fence. They would eat chicken and rice with vegetables at lunch, apple pie for dessert as their children ran through the house filled with the lavish laughter of Park Chanyeol.

Baekhyun had already gone through the phase of writing names on the edge of notebook sheets for a long time, but there was something about Park Chanyeol that made him repeat every little habit of ten years ago.

Park Chanyeol.

.

Mrs. Kim was the only one who had noticed. She had looked sad, sighed, and then had offered to assemble the bouquet of tulips. Baekhyun had thanked and locked himself in the greenhouse. He would allow himself to cry for two, three minutes. Mrs. Kim had came in and called him for a talk. Two weeks later, Baekhyun had marked his surgery.

A month later, Park Chanyeol was married.

A month later, Baekhyun had said goodbye to the flowers.

.

It didn’t hurt. To be honest, Baekhyun felt nothing.

Ah, the feelings were still there, he was still crying with old movies and smiling when singing La Vie En Rose to Mrs. Kim, but there was no longer that leap in his chest, that chill in his spine when Chanyeol appeared by the flower shop asking for a beautiful bouquet. He now bought roses, camellias, carnations, azaleas, no more tulips. Now Baekhyun would see Chanyeol, and see brown eyes, common and boring, a somewhat forced smile, too pearly. They ended up becoming friends. It was simple.

.

Baekhyun had been the first to notice when Chanyeol had stopped smiling. The first to offer support when Chanyeol had appeared crying in the flower shop, holding tightly between his fingers a small wedding ring, not the one that was heavy on his own finger, but the small and delicate one that had once adorned Kyungri's hand. And Baekhyun had felt sad for his friend. Just sad.

.

It was five months later that it started.

Talking near the counter, Chanyeol looked at him strangely.

The petal had jumped out of his pink mouth, all flushed. And Chanyeol had looked at him sadly as he murmured.

"I always knew, Baekhyun.”

And Baekhyun wept. Because it was Park Chanyeol who was now breathing petals through his mouth, who looked sadly at Baekhyun and who had loved him for some time. How simple it would have been if Baekhyun had said something before, had he allowed the flowers to grow in his chest, just a little longer.

.

Park Chanyeol had removed the flowers from his chest. That day he had returned home with a beautiful bouquet of yellow tulips as a gift to Baekhyun.

Hopeless love and admiration without limits, but also cheerful thoughts and sunshine. It was what Mrs. Kim murmured while describing the flowers. Baekhyun smiled.

He approached Chanyeol, gave him a warm kiss on the lips, and had gone in search of a vase for the flowers.

There was no hope, Baekhyun had thought as he felt the strong arms wrap around him, but he would always admire the love he once had for Park Chanyeol, with his ordinary eyes and smile no longer forced but too white still.

 

_Hanahaki Byou: disease of the human system in which the wearer vomits flowers, caused by severe unilateral love. To recover, love must be reciprocated._


End file.
